Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men with an estimated 317,000 cases in 1996 in the United States. It is the second leading cause of death among men who die from neoplasia with an estimated 40,000 deaths per year. Prompt detection and treatment is needed to limit mortality caused by prostate cancer.
Detection of Prostate Cancer
When it metastasizes, prostatic cancer has a distinct predilection for bone and lymph nodes. Saitoh et al., “Metastatic Patterns of Prostatic Cancer. Correlation Between Sites And Number Of Organs Involved,” Cancer, 54:3078-3084 (1984). At the time of clinical diagnosis, as many as 25% of patients have bone metastasis demonstrable by radionuclide scans. Murphy, G. P., et al., “The National Survey Of Prostate Cancer In The United States By The American College Of Surgeons,” J. Urol., 127:928-939 (1982). Accurate clinical evaluation of nodal involvement has proven to be difficult. Imaging techniques such as computed tomography (“CT”) or magnetic resonance (“MR”) imaging are unable to distinguish metastatic prostate cancer involvement of lymph nodes by criterion other than size (i.e., >1 cm). Therefore, by definition, these imaging modalities are inherently insensitive in the detection of small volume (<1 cm) disease as well as non-specific in the detection of larger volume adenopathy. A recent study assessed the accuracy of MR in patients with clinically localized prostate cancer. Rifkin et al., “Comparison Of Magnetic Resonance Imaging And Ultrasonography In Staging Early Prostate Cancer,” N. Engel. J. Med., 323:621-626 (1990). In this study, 194 patients underwent an MR and 185 of these patients had a lymph node dissection. 23 (13%) patients had pathologically involved lymph nodes. MR was suspicious in only 1 of these 23 cases resulting in a sensitivity of 4%. Similar results have also been noted with CT scans. Gasser et al., “MRI And Ultrasonography In Staging Prostate Cancer,” N. Engl. J. Med. (Correspondence) 324(7):49-495 (1991).
The elevation of serum acid phosphatase activity in patients having metastasized prostate carcinoma was first reported by Gutman et al., J. Clin. Invest 17:473 (1938). In cancer of the prostate, prostatic acid phosphatase is released from the cancer tissue into the blood stream with the result that the total serum acid phosphatase level can be greatly increased above normal values. Numerous studies of this enzyme and its relation to prostatic cancer have been made since that time, e.g. Yam, Amer. J. Med. 56:604 (1974). However, the measurement of serum acid phosphatase is elevated in about 65-90 percent of patients having carcinoma of the prostate with bone metastasis; in about 30 percent of patients without roentgenological evidence of bone metastasis; and in about only 5-10 percent of patients lacking clinically demonstrable metastasis.
Prior art attempts to develop a specific test for prostatic acid phosphatase have met with only limited success, because techniques which rely on enzyme activity on a so-called “specific” substrate cannot take into account other biochemical and immunochemical differences among the many acid phosphatases which are unrelated to enzyme activity of prostate origin. In the case of isoenzymes, i.e. genetically defined enzymes having the same characteristic enzyme activity and a similar molecular structure but differing in amino acid sequences and/or content and, therefore, immunochemically distinguishable, it would appear inherently impossible to distinguish different isoenzyme forms merely by the choice of a particular substrate. It is, therefore, not surprising that none of these prior art methods is highly specific for the direct determination of prostatic acid phosphatase activity; e.g. see Cancer 5:236 (1952); J. Lab. Clin. Med. 82:486 (1973); Clin. Chem. Acta. 44:21 (1973); and J. Physiol. Chem. 356:1775 (1975).
In addition to the aforementioned problems of non-specificity which appear to be inherent in many of the prior art reagents employed for the detection of prostate acid phosphatase, there have been reports of elevated serum acid phosphatase associated with other diseases, which further complicates the problem of obtaining an accurate clinical diagnosis of prostatic cancer. For example, Tuchman et al., Am. J. Med. 27:959 (1959) noted that serum acid phosphatase levels appear to be elevated in patients with Gaucher's disease.
Due to the inherent difficulties in developing a “specific” substrate for prostate acid phosphatase, several researchers have developed immunochemical methods for the detection of prostate acid phosphatase. However, the previously reported immunochemical methods have drawbacks of their own which have precluded their widespread acceptance. For example, Shulman et al., Immunology 93:474 (1964) described an immuno-diffusion test for the detection of human prostate acid phosphatase. Using antisera prepared from a prostatic fluid antigen obtained by rectal massage from patients with prostatic disease, no cross-reactivity precipitin line was observed in the double diffusion technique against extracts of normal kidney, testicle, liver, and lung. However, this method has the disadvantages of limited sensitivity, even with the large amounts of antigen employed, and of employing antisera which may cross-react with other, antigenically unrelated serum protein components present in prostatic fluid.
WO 79/00475 to Chu et. al. describes a method for the detection of prostatic acid phosphatase isoenzyme patterns associated with prostatic cancer which obviates many of the above drawbacks. However, practical problems are posed by the need for a source of cancerous prostatic tissue from which the diagnostically relevant prostatic acid phosphatase isoenzyme patterns associated with prostatic cancer are extracted for the preparation of antibodies thereto.
In recent years, considerable effort has been spent to identify enzyme or antigen markers for various types of malignancies with the view towards developing specific diagnostic reagents. The ideal tumor marker would exhibit, among other characteristics, tissue or cell-type specificity. Previous investigators have demonstrated the occurrence of human prostate tissue-specific antigens.
Treatment of Prostate Cancer
As described in W. J. Catalona, “Management of Cancer of the Prostate,” New Engl. J. Med., 331(15):996-1004 (1994), the management of prostate cancer can be achieved by watchful waiting, curative treatment, and palliation.
For men with a life expectancy of less than 10 years, watchful waiting is appropriate where low-grade, low-stage prostate cancer is discovered at the time of a partial prostatectomy for benign hyperplasia. Such cancers rarely progress during the first five years after detection. On the other hand, for younger men, curative treatment is often more appropriate.
Where prostate cancer is localized and the patient's life expectancy is 10 years or more, radical prostatectomy offers the best chance for eradication of the disease. Historically, the drawback of this procedure is that most cancers had spread beyond the bounds of the operation by the time they were detected. However, the use of prostate-specific antigen testing has permitted early detection of prostate cancer. As a result, surgery is less extensive with fewer complications. Patients with bulky, high-grade tumors are less likely to be successfully treated by radical prostatectomy.
After surgery, if there are detectable serum prostate-specific antigen concentrations, persistent cancer is indicated. In many cases, prostate-specific antigen concentrations can be reduced by radiation treatment. However, this concentration often increases again within two years.
Radiation therapy has also been widely used as an alternative to radical prostatectomy. Patients generally treated by radiation therapy are those who are older and less healthy and those with higher-grade, more clinically advanced tumors. Particularly preferred procedures are external-beam therapy which involves three dimensional, conformal radiation therapy where the field of radiation is designed to conform to the volume of tissue treated; interstitial-radiation therapy where seeds of radioactive compounds are implanted using ultrasound guidance; and a combination of external-beam therapy and interstitial-radiation therapy.
For treatment of patients with locally advanced disease, hormonal therapy before or following radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy has been utilized. Hormonal therapy is the main form of treating men with disseminated prostate cancer. Orchiectomy reduces serum testosterone concentrations, while estrogen treatment is similarly beneficial. Diethylstilbestrol from estrogen is another useful hormonal therapy which has a disadvantage of causing cardiovascular toxicity. When gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists are administered testosterone concentrations are ultimately reduced. Flutamide and other nonsteroidal, anti-androgen agents block binding of testosterone to its intracellular receptors. As a result, it blocks the effect of testosterone, increasing serum testosterone concentrations and allows patients to remain potent—a significant problem after radical prostatectomy and radiation treatments.
Cytotoxic chemotherapy is largely ineffective in treating prostate cancer. Its toxicity makes such therapy unsuitable for elderly patients. In addition, prostate cancer is relatively resistant to cytotoxic agents.
Use of Monoclonal Antibodies in Prostate Cancer Detection and Treatment
Theoretically, radiolabeled monoclonal antibodies (“mAbs”) offer the potential to enhance both the sensitivity and specificity of detecting prostatic cancer within lymph nodes and elsewhere. While many mAbs have previously been prepared against prostate related antigens, none of these mAbs were specifically generated with an imaging objective in mind. Nevertheless, the clinical need has led to evaluation of some of these mAbs as possible imaging agents. Vihko et al., “Radioimaging of Prostatic Carcinoma With Prostatic Acid Phosphatase—Specific Antibodies,” Biotechnology in Diagnostics, 131-134 (1985); Babaian et al., “Radioimmunological Imaging of Metastatic Prostatic Cancer With 111-Indium-Labeled Monoclonal Antibody PAY 276,” J. Urol., 137:439-443 (1987); Leroy et al., “Radioimmunodetection Of Lymph Node Invasion In Prostatic Cancer. The Use Of Iodine 123 (123-I)-Labeled Monoclonal Anti-Prostatic Acid Phosphatase (PAP) 227 A F (ab′) 2 Antibody Fragments In Vivo,” Cancer, 64:1-5 (1989); Meyers et al., “Development Of Monoclonal Antibody Imaging Of Metastatic Prostatic Carcinoma,” The Prostate, 14:209-220 (1989).
In some cases, the monoclonal antibodies developed for detection and/or treatment of prostate cancer recognize antigens specific to malignant prostatic tissues. Such antibodies are thus used to distinguish malignant prostatic tissue (for treatment or detection) from benign prostatic tissue. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,970,299 to Bazinet et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,902,615 to Freeman et al.
Other monoclonal antibodies react with surface antigens on all prostate epithelial cells whether cancerous or benign. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,446,122 and Re 33,405 to Chu et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,863,851 to McEwan et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,055,404 to Ueda et al. However, the antigens detected by these monoclonal antibodies are present in the blood and, therefore, compete with antigens at tumor sites for the monoclonal antibodies. This causes background noise which makes the use of such antibodies inadequate for in vivo imaging. In therapy, such antibodies, if bound to a cytotoxic agent, could be harmful to other organs.
Horoszewicz et al., “Monoclonal Antibodies to a New Antigenic Marker in Epithelial Prostatic Cells and Serum of Prostatic Cancer Patients,” Anticancer Research, 7:927-936 (1987) (“Horoszewicz”) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,162,504 to Horoszewicz describe an antibody, designated 7E11, which recognizes prostate specific membrane antigen (“PSMA”). Israeli et al., “Molecular Cloning of a Complementary DNA Encoding a Prostate-specific Membrane Antigen,” Cancer Research, 53:227-230 (1993) (“Israeli”) describes the cloning and sequencing of PSMA and reports that PSMA is prostate-specific and shows increased expression levels in metastatic sites and in hormone-refractory states. Other studies have indicated that PSMA is more strongly expressed in prostate cancer cells relative to cells from the normal prostate or from a prostate with benign hyperplasia. Furthermore, PSMA is not found in serum (Troyer et al., “Detection and Characterization of the Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) in Tissue Extracts and Body Fluids,” Int. J. Cancer, 62:552-558 (1995)).
These characteristics make PSMA an attractive target for antibody mediated targeting for imaging and therapy of prostate cancer. Imaging studies using indium-labeled 7E11 have indicated that the antibody localizes quite well to both the prostate and to sites of metastasis. In addition, 7E11 appears to have clearly improved sensitivity for detecting lesions compared to other currently available imaging techniques, such as CT and MR imaging or bone scan. Bander, “Current Status of Monoclonal Antibodies for Imaging and Therapy of Prostate Cancer,” Sem. In Oncology, 21:607-612 (1994).
However, the use of 7E11 and other known antibodies to PSMA to mediate imaging and therapy has several disadvantages. First, PSMA is an integral membrane protein known to have a short intracellular tail and a long extracellular domain. Biochemical characterization and mapping (Troyer et al., “Biochemical Characterization and Mapping of the 7E11-C5.3 Epitope of the Prostate-specific Membrane Antigen,” Urol. Oncol., 1:29-37 (1995)) have shown that the epitope or antigenic site to which the 7E11 antibody binds is present on the intracellular portion of the molecule. Because antibody molecules do not, under normal circumstances, cross the cell membrane unless they bind to the extracellular portion of a molecule and become translocated intracellularly, the 7E11 antibody does not have access to its antigenic target site in an otherwise healthy, viable cell.
Consequently, imaging using 7E11 is limited to the detection of dead cells within tumor deposits. Additionally, the therapeutic use of the 7E11 antibody is limited, because only cells that are already dead or tissue containing a large proportion of dead cells can be effectively targeted.
The present invention is directed to overcoming the deficiencies of prior art antibodies in diagnosing and treating prostate cancer.